A Century and a Half Ago

Abstract

Only five years prior to 1834 the first railroad had been completed, and steam-ships were just beginning to be built. In industry, steam engines were the most popular sources of power. In fact, this period is sometimes called the “Steam Revolution”. It was also the time of Napoleonic wars, social disorders and revolutioins, of Goethe, Beethoven, Byron and Pushkin, and of many important scientific discoveries, including many principal discoveries in physics, the full meaning of which would become clear only gradually many years later. At the time, physics was not yet regarded as a seperate science. The first physics institute was created in 1850 in Vienna. Around 1834, university professors were still reading courses in”natural philosophy,” which included what we call experiemental, theoretical and applied physics.